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Dolphin capture debate heats up

by Eric Jackson

Opposition to Ocean Embassy's plans to open a dolphin park in San Carlos and capture wild dolphins to populate it is growing and both sides in the argument are getting more strident in their statements. Meanwhile there are growing questions about the venture's intended scope.

In any public controversy, opportunities to vilify the other side wax or wane to the extent that the person or persons to be attacked are known. Here the company that's behind the dolphin capture project, Ocean Embassy, and its key figures are not well known to Panamanians. But neither were the first people to express opposition, who tended to be environmentalists and animal welfare activists from North America and Europe.

On the one side that's changing, as most of Panama's environmentalists and animal welfare groups have joined in a "Blue Front" to oppose the capture of dolphins in Panamanian waters and several prominent public figures, led by the mayors of Panama City and Bocas del Toro, have spoken out against the project. While the first protest brought only about three dozen people with placards to state their case along, the second protest on March 15 drew about 500 people and a lot of inflatable plastic dolphins to Parque Urraca.

Ocean Embassy's Ted Turner, however, dismisses the opponents of doing "nothing except fundraising using dolphins." He focuses most of his specific criticism on US-based critics, for example denouncing the Humane Society of the United States for its dim view of zoos.

But the critics allege that Ocean Embassy intends to capture dolphins from Panamanian waters and export them to countries that have dolphin parks but don't readily give out dolphin capture permits, at a world price of around $100,000 apiece. The allegation is that Ocean Embassy wants permits to take about 80 dolphins, when the facility they propose in San Carlos wouldn't have room for half that number. Turner's assertion that captive breeding is a part of the company's plans can be spun various ways, one of which is to question the purpose of such a program --- maintaining numbers in San Carlos, or breeding for export? And now some of the corporate mainstream dailies are reporting that the plan isn't just for one dolphin park in San Carlos but for three, including facilities in the Perlas Islands and Bocas del Toro. But that, in turn, sounds financially dubious to some. All of this has heightened suspicions and raised the pitch of the arguments.

One of the suspicions being raised is by gadfly anti-corruption activist Enrique Montenegro, who alleges that the fix is in, with IPAT tourism bureau director Rubén Blades and Vice President and Maritime Authority director Rubén Arosemena behind the project. Arosemena, who is just back to the job after a weeks in the hospital, has not had any response. Blades says he knows nothing about dolphins or dolphin parks and questions Montenegro's sanity.

It seems if some fix is or was in with the Torrijos administration, but none of the public officials or presidential appointees who have voted for or approved permits for Ocean Embassy's operations has been willing to speak out in favor of the project. Now, with likely PRD presidential primary candidate Juan Carlos Navarro firmly against the project, there is the promise that this issue could split the ruling coalition sooner and more deeply than President Torrijos would expect as inevitable (given the challenge from former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares). Even if decisions had been made, it now seems possible that they could be unmade.

And that seems to be why Ocean Embassy is in attack mode.

Dolphin capture opponents mobilize, promoters respond
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Allegation of an Al Qaeda plot to attack the canal

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Leftists protest in front of American Embassy

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Panama News Briefs